Demonstrators cheered him. Mark Stone left his home in Ventura County at 4:30 a.m. to attend a pro-Trump rally in Otay Mesa. His message: “That California loves him and we support his policies.”

During a half-day stay in San Diego, Trump inspected prototypes of his proposed border wall and addressed Marines at Miramar. Then the president flew to a Beverly Hills fundraiser, leaving behind a region divided on his policies and his personality.

San Diego County was not a Trump stronghold on Election Night 2016, when only 39 percent voted for the victorious Republican candidate. Local opposition to the president has only hardened since then, even among priests, ministers, rabbis and imams, said Kevin Malone, executive director of the San Diego Organizing Project.

“Since the election,” said Malone, whose group led the anti-Trump rally at San Ysidro’s Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish, “there are more and more clergy trying to figure out how to get involved. This administration has been a real boon.”

While union officials and politicians such as Vargas and Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher also addressed the crowd of 300 to 400, half of the 14 speakers were clerics. Adding a religious tenor to a political rally makes some uncomfortable.

Our Lady’s pastor, the Rev. Jose Castillo, noted that a parishioner asked him about the wisdom of mixing matters of church and state.

“It’s important to pray for politicians,” Castillo replied, “so they do good for the people.”

Concerns about church-state conflicts have not prevented prominent evangelical Christians from backing this president, others noted, even after he was accused of extramarital dalliances with porn stars.

“I am very disappointed with many of the Christian leaders who have joined with Trump in building walls, not bridges,” said Bishop Cornelius Bowser, the pastor of Charity Apostolic Church.

Others taking aim at Trump’s immigration policies included Rabbi Yael Ridberg of Congregation Dor Hadesh; the Rev. Kathleen Owens of the First Universalist Unitarian Church; and Issam Laghrichi, representing Imam Taha Hassane from the Islamic Center of San Diego.

“It is the time for us to put our faith into action,” Lagrichi said.

For several speakers, the immigration issue hit painfully close to home. Gloria Morales, a parishioner at Christ the King Catholic Church, was 17 when she arrived in the U.S. as an unauthorized immigrant. She became a U.S. citizen three years later, but “I know what it is like to be afraid.”

Betsy Garcia knows, too. A beneficiary of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, she was 12 when her family brought her into the U.S. The Trump administration has threatened to cancel DACA, unless Congress approves legislation protecting the roughly 800,000 who came to the U.S. as children without immigration papers,

“No one,” she said, her voice breaking, “should live with this kind of fear of losing it all.”

As the crowd gathered in a church parking lot with a view of Tijuana, they waved dozens of homemade signs: “U Can’t Build a Wall, Your Hands Are Too Small.” “Tillerson Is Right: Moron.” “Let Vladimir Pay For It!” “No $ For Trump’s Vanity Project.”

Kristen Maher, an associate professor of political science at San Diego State University, hoisted that last sign. While no fan of Trump’s politics, she argued that her opposition to the border wall is based on research as well as ideology.

“I have a lot of data, a lot of studies that the show that walls do not work,” Maher said. “It’s a very, very expensive gesture.”

Ellen Montanari was willing to spend her own money to make a counter-argument, approaching several billboard companies with an anti-wall message. When they all refused, Montanari made a deal with a Tijuana company.

Her message — an image of the Statue of Liberty, with the text “Higher Than Any Wall” — now appears on an electronic billboard south of the San Ysidro border crossing.

In Otay Mesa, just a few miles away, another band of 300 to 400 demonstrators made a loud counter-argument. Carrying American flags, Trump banners and signs promoting border walls, they cheered speakers calling for strict immigration controls and a physical border barrier.

“Build the wall!” some chanted.

“Nice and tall!” others responded.

Tim Donnelly, a former state assembly member and founder of the Minuteman Party in California, told the audience he prayed that Oakland Mayor Libby Schaff be arrested “aiding and abetting criminal aliens in our country.”

“Lock her up!” the crowd chanted.

Schaff has been criticized by Trump and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions for announcing an impending raid by immigration agents.

Angie Marfin came to this rally from her home in Salinas, carrying memories of her late son and a 2105 meeting with then-candidate Trump.

“I just hope he puts up the border wall,” said Marfin, whose 13-year-old son Ruben was killed by an unauthorized immigrant in 1990. “I hope he keeps his promise to me, when he took my hand and told me everything was going to be okay.”

Jeff Schwilk, head of San Diegans for Secure Borders, joined with other groups to organize this rally. He wanted Trump to know there’s local support for the wall. “He’s got a welcoming committee here that is supporting what he’s doing to secure our border,” Schwilk said.

Despite all the hot rhetoric, advocates on both sides said they’d welcome a cooler atmosphere.

Steve Johnson said his fellow members of the Borderland Patriots have been labelled “racists” or “Nazis.”

“It’s so frustrating when the conversation goes to that,” Johnson said. “As soon as they say ‘you’re a racist’ the conversation is dead.”

Bishop Bowser, meanwhile, insisted that Christians have to be guided by faith and love.

“I prayed for Trump yesterday,” Bowser said. “I come from a violent gang background and God changed me. So I know people can change.”

In fact, the demonstrations ended without the police making a single arrest — even in Otay Mesa, where pro- and con-factions had engaged in dueling chants.

“Usually people have to leave in different directions to make sure there won’t be any fights,” said Ken Nwadike Jr., whose Free Hugs Project tries to defuse tense situations. “It was so cool to see everyone head out in the same way. They all walked down the same street together.

“I hope that this could be a turning point. We’ve been so divided as a country in recent years and especially around these hot topics.”